Temple marriage has been a successful control mechanism and profit maker for the LDS Church. Nothing is more effective than family and social pressure and nothing is worse in LDS culture by being barred from attending a family wedding. So that’s motivation for many to pay up and do the church thing.

In a time when the western world is losing it’s interest in attending church and the rapid decline and demise of Christian church’s the LDS Church is concerned about retaining it’s membership.

The dilemma the LDS Church has is how does it mainstream into a generalized Christian church and still maintain it’s grip of control the leadership are so addicted to. It can’t. It’s impossible but they are making vain attempts to do it.

Empires die and church’s fade away as well. Mormonism always needed isolation and control of the local government to survive. It’s losing that. The church can not abandon the Salt Lake Temple. It’s too big of a symbol. They have spent a fortune trying to make metropolitan Salt Lake City a place Mormon families would want to move back into. Salt Lake has become less LDS and more liberal. With more non-Mormons moving into Salt Lake and the Mormon history becoming more of a liability the church has a dilemma.

I predict the church will change without changing and continue to shrink. People just don’t want what they are selling. The Book of Mormon to the modern person is a popular Broadway musical that makes fun of the silliness of Mormonism. The modern world views Mormonism as silly and they can try and run from the Mormon stigma all they want but you can’t get a little bit pregnant. You either have to ditch Joseph Smith entirely or you are stuck with his bad and silly reputation.

Mutual-ly exclusive. They aren't trying to "mainstream" but adapt to what ever keeps their cult able to function as a cult.

Saying they are mainstreaming is like saying network marketing is trying to ditch that model for brick and mortar stores while maintaining their cult grip on their marketers. It sounds ridiculous.

That’s the point I was making. The Church’s Public relations and ambassadorship with other faith’s is we are more alike than different. President Hinckley’s favorite pitch was bring what you have and let us add to it.

Russell M Nelson’s pitch is we are a Christian church. They are tempering the “we are the only true church” motto with come with us and let’s worship Christ.

Also gone is the Ezra Taft Benson styled,”We are Mormons and we are a peculiar people and proud of it!” So the church has mainstreamed it’s public image and even some of it’s rhetoric inside the church but it’s not ready to ditch Joseph Smith or the temple.

Joseph Smith and the church history will continue to be a liability on the church no matter how much they try to promote they are a normal Christian church.

Rubicon Wrote:
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> So the church has mainstreamed it’s
> public image and even some of it’s rhetoric
> inside the church but it’s not ready to ditch
> Joseph Smith or the temple.

So they aren't trying to mainstream but break into other markets with their religion MLM.

Elder Berry wrote: "So they aren't trying to mainstream but break into other markets with their religion MLM.

I agree that this is Mormonism's main goal. The Mormon leaders are too arrogant and power-hungry to ever truly attempt to mainstream. It's my guess that Whoever replaces Nelson will revert back to the old ways (except, the whitewashing of church history and underplaying of the BOM and other "scriptures" will continue).

Mormonism's greed, Narcissism, and dishonesty will be its downfall. I hope we live to see this. Perhaps it's happening already....

Being barred outside of temple weddings is one of the most hurtful things i have experienced and i endured physical assaults in my youth. I felt lower than the animals and i have never forgotten that feeling. It does something to you.

Yes it does and make no mistake, it’s engineered to be that way. The church is all about social engineering. That being said the church is worried about being forced by the state to perform gay marriages in the temple so that’s why they now allow a temple sealing to be performed immediately after a civil marriage.

I think the church will stop having temple weddings and the members will have civil weddings and get sealed later. This creates a dilemma. The young couples will get married and all the family can be there. They will have sex. After that maybe getting sealed in the temple won’t be so important. Probably going on the honeymoon will be more important.

Also since the wedding already happened who cares about the sealing? A lot of members will blow it off. Also who wants to get a recommend just to go to a sealing? The wedding already happened.

So the fear of gay marriage might just take a huge chunk out of the church.

As a non Mormon, the whole have to be a paying member to attend makes them look stupid. This conversation happened when a friend of mines kid got married.

Me: "So I'm invited to the wedding, but I can't actually attend?"

Friend: "You have to be a member and have a temple recommend to come into the service."

Me: "Then why exactly did you invite me?"

Friend: "So you can share the day"

Me: " The ceremony is the point of the day, thanks but no thanks, I'm staying home............"

That's what happened the last time I attempted to discuss JS with my TBM mother. I may have said my peace, but she had the last word with a lengthy letter that I had attacked her faith.

Here's something that might just deflate the High Horse Temple Ceremony Balloon.

Shortly after I took early retirement, my husband needed to get insurance through his work and I had to be added on to it. His company required proof that we were married so that I could be on the insurance.

We had gotten married in a civil ceremony first and then sealed in the temple years later.

To make a long story short, we sent my husbands' company our temple sealing certificate. They sent a letter back stating that the certificate isn't legal! :D Of course, by then, we realized that they needed the LICENSE.

But it was a joy for a moment for someone to say the temple sealing wasn't legal.

We also found out that the minister who married us never got the license turned in before he died 3 years after we were married; so there was no record of us ever being married, but that's another story.

The marriage LICENSE is proof that you meet the requirements to marry, such as being legally old enough and not married to anyone else. The marriage CERTIFICATE (usually signed by the officiant) says that a legally recognized ceremony has taken place, thus making you a married couple.

This delicate distinction was drummed into me decades ago as a Social Security trainee, for when we had to establish that a marriage was or was not valid, for spouse/widow/er benefits. The rules often vary from one State to another, and can be a real nightmare.

Watering down the Kool Aid makes it less effective.

What Jim Jones served killed you but what Joseph Smith does makes you really really sick.

An insightful post.

What does something look like that is trying to maintain control while also de-emphasizing what made it unique? Well, you start by diluting or hiding doctrines. So polygamy, the priesthood ban, the racist history, the blanket denial of non-cis sexuality, the blood oaths, and many other things go away. Next you see Gabriel de-emphasized on temples, the cross allowed to reappear, etc. But this stuff was what underlay the legitimacy of the church. Remove it all and there is much less reason for people to remain committed.

The answer? The only thing left of the hierarchy's power is the men's power itself. So as you walk away from the history and doctrine, you have to emphasize ever more the saintliness and authority of the men themselves. Obedience supplants conviction and a cult of historical figures becomes a cult of living men.

Power and control are increasingly evident, their purposes increasingly transparent.

Actually, it's Moroni on the temple, not Gabriel. But Gabriel actually played the bugled damned well, while Moroni was just using it as a prop.

I live outside the corridor. An adult in my family has a subscription to Deseret News paper. I get it with the mail and take it in the house. I open the mail over the pull-out garbage can in the kitchen so all the junk mail can go easily where it belongs. My routine is to open the newspaper in such a way that I let the little church news section, folded inside the newspaper, fall into the garbage can. I get a chuckle EVERY time I notice the main front page story of the newspaper (and often the church news too) is ALWAYS about a pastor, rabbi, or member of another religion and how they go about life, as if that is of interest to the world at large. It's all part of the church's effort to look inclusive and mainstream. How two faced. I grew up begin taught these people the stories are about were evil and servants of the devil.

So it's a contradiction or hypocracy - trying to look mainstream yet at the same time, ramping up controls? Seems like a recipe for failure.

...or just one of the longest running gaslighting programs in the world?

Gaslighting: Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. (Wikipedia)

Making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity.... Or, in the case of Mormonism, making them disregard their own memories and perceptions whenever told to do so and making them believe that simultaneously embracing multiple mutually contradictory and provably false propositions equals righteous faith, while rejecting the same equals spiritual insanity.

++++++++++++

Memory: "But weren't we taught that we are to be a peculiar people?"

Gaslighting: "Nope."

Memory: "But weren't we taught that we can become gods and that God himself was once like we are now?"

Gaslighting: "Whoa! Are you one of those couplet fanatics?"

++++++++++

Perception: "I thought the First Presidency comprised men of exceptionally deep spirituality, inspiration and discernment...especially about things relating to the church, such as church history, scriptures, the life and mission of Joseph Smith, etc. But was it just me or did we all witness Spencer W. Kimball, Gordon B. Hinckley, Dallin Oaks and other top leaders of the church falling for the document forgeries and lies of Mark Hoffman, while the "anti-Mormon" Jerald Tanner tried to warn them that Hoffman's documents were likely fake?

Gaslighting: "Nothing like that ever happened. That's why we never talk about it. Because it never happened."

++++++++++

Perception: "Is it just me or does the world seem to be leading the church and dragging it in whatever direction the critical mass of worldly influences and ideas move, instead of the church leading the world?"

Gaslighting: "It's just you and your failure to correctly perceive reality. The church leads by following. It speaks truth to worldly power by defiantly resisting worldly influences until it becomes more convenient to not resist."

Wait! I just got back to RFM, so I've been REALLY out of touch with what's going on in Mormonism - and are you saying they are no longer teaching that you can become gods and create worlds?

>and are you saying they are no longer teaching that you can become gods and create worlds?


See the answers to questions 11 and 12

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/frequently-asked-questions

Also see

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/becoming-like-god?lang=eng

Thank you! Well, well. We were TOTALLY taught that we'd become Gods and create our own worlds when I was in the LDS Church. I feel like *I* AM A TIME CAPSULE.

Indeed we were taught that.

But note how carefully TSCC words their response. They specifically deny everyone will "get their own planet" while saying nothing about getting to create worlds; they say that they will become somehow "like God" without clarifying what that means; but they never actually outright deny the belief that they will become gods.

In my Mormon family, it was temple worthy or no inheritance. That's what is wanted. A continuous stream of tithed money.

Years ago, when my children were young, I added up the minutes of my life that I would be able to spend performing holy ordinances. Then I asked myself if it was worth giving 10 % and many hours of service to a church I didn't believe in just for those amount of minutes?

The answer was no. I had baptized all four before the decision was made. At the time the oldest was 17 and the youngest was 9.

Did not attend any of their temple weddings/sealings.

In the final scene of the movie "Dirty Dancing" the band leader is up on stage orchestrating a free-for-all dance experience, while the resort owner looks on, seeing his hold on the past slipping away and wondering what the future holds. He asks the band leader if he has sheet music for this. No, moron church, there is no sheet music for this, just get the hell out of the way because you are never going to get it back.

The prophets can't not put gaybie in the corner.

Edelman's feat was to create the appearance of mainstreaming.

Maybe TSSC will try that again.

I thought Edelman played for the Patriots.

Much of their "mainstreaming" is simply superficial window dressing for outside, public consumption, like enlarging their name of Jesus on their logos and saying things like "worship with us." The church in its essence isn't changing that much. Attend an LDS sunday service and it's still focused on Joseph Smith, "the church" and obedience to the leaders.

I do think they are trying to sweep under the rug a lot of the weird or controversial past teachings and doctrines. There will be lots of that wasn't official doctrine and those were just sos and so's personal opinions. They seem to want to dumb down the church and strip it down to just some bare essentials like living prophets, priesthood authority, temples, and obedience to the brethren.

That last bit is what they will NOT be mainstreaming. The one doctrine the church will NOT mainstream away it's claim of authority and demand for obedience. Absolute obedience seems to be the one true and unchanging doctrine in the LDS Church. It doesn't matter if something makes sense or it wrong or true or why, JUST OBEY.

I was excluded from three of my four children's weddings for this very reason.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/06/2019 09:27AM by thedesertrat1.

Eager Mormon historians, growing in number, are eagerly seeking out the facts about the lives and doctrines of past Mormon heroes. George Q. Cannon's journals, long kept hidden from most of us, are now online (slightly redacted the names of folks exes or disciplined for adultery.) It's all there online, the visits to his several wives, the children born almost simultaneously to his several wives. And this is only the life one man and his journals stretching over what, 50 years?

Nothing will be hidden, lives lived like an open book.For people who want to look.

Still, I am amazed, at intelligent, educated Mormons who just laugh it all off and go about doing their mindless ward jobs.

Phantom Shadow Wrote:
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> Still, I am amazed, at intelligent, educated
> Mormons who just laugh it all off and go about
> doing their mindless ward jobs.

It is like a horror movie. I want to scream warnings about the mental mess up that is their Mormonism but there is nothing I can do to prevent them from being mentally harmed.